Kevin Jones – Flintshire

February 2006

Care abduction couple are jailed

A couple from Flintshire who admitted abducting two children in care and fleeing to Europe have been jailed.

Kevin Terry Jones, 33, who was earlier convicted of a series of sexual offences against children, was jailed for a total of six-and-a-half years.

His partner Paula MacKenzie Sears, 22, was jailed for six months and given a concurrent sentence for the false imprisonment of a social worker.

Mold Crown Court heard the pair were on the run for two weeks.

The court was told Jones had been due to stand trial last September on a string of charges of sex offences involving a child which was not one of those involved in the abduction.

But before the trial took place he and his partner Sears abducted two children from the care of Flintshire social services.

Sears also admitted a charge of falsely imprisoning a social worker during the abduction.

The court heard that the couple fled to Spain via France and also spent some time at EuroDisney in Paris before contacting North Wales Police by phone, two weeks after the abduction.

They were found in Spain where they were arrested and brought back to Britain.

Jones stood trial earlier this month and was convicted of 10 offences including three of attempted rape of a child.

On the abduction charges, Judge John Rogers QC said: “When a court order made to protect children is blatantly breached by the children being abducted and taken abroad a sentence of imprisonment is inevitable.

“In this case there were aggravating features.”

Of the sexual offences the judge told Jones: “You carried out persistent and prolonged sexual abuse of a child.”